Ben Green secured his second ROWE Pole Award of the season in today's Fanatec GT Europe qualifying at Magny-Cours to give Emil Frey Racing a fantastic shot at back-to-back Sprint Cup victories.
The 10-minute session set the grid for tonight's opening race, which gets underway shortly before sunset at 20:15 CEST. Green will line up at the head of the field after posting a 1m36.701s aboard the #14 Ferrari.
Dan Harper will start second overall aboard the #991 Century Motorsport BMW – 0.090s shy of Green – and also topped the Bronze Cup order. Sven Müller maintained Rutronik Racing's strong run of form by qualifying P3 in the #96 Porsche (+0.127s), while Christopher Haase gave Eastalent Racing a dream Sprint Cup debut by placing fourth aboard the #84 Audi (+0.153s).
Dennis Marschall was fifth overall in the #97 Rutronik Racing Porsche, which will provide stiff Bronze Cup competition for the #991 BMW. The championship-leading #32 Team WRT BMW of Dries Vanthoor took sixth and will have eyes on at least a podium in tonight's contest.
Another Bronze Cup car was seventh – Sandy Mitchell in the #78 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini – followed by the #6 Liqui-Moly Team Engstler by OneGroup Audi, which bagged Gold Cup pole courtesy of Luca Engstler. The #66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi and the #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari completed the top 10, while the #48 Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter machine was only 11th.
Madpanda Motorsport took Silver Cup pole. Ezequiel Perez Companc set a 1m37.453s in the #90 Mercedes-AMG, beating the #71 AF Corse Ferrari by six hundredths and three places on the grid. There was less joy for the class leader, as the #30 Team WRT BMW struggled to 28th overall.
The session began with problems for Garage 59, which saw its #159 McLaren grind to a halt due to a fuel pressure issue moments after leaving pit lane. The red flag was shown, after which the car was restarted and Benjamin Goethe returned to the pits. The German driver ultimately qualified 18th overall for this evening's race.
The weekend's opening contest gets underway at 20:15 and will be streamed live on the GT World YouTube channel. Green and his Emil Frey Racing teammate Konsta Lappalainen will hope to make it two wins in succession after conquering last month's Sprint Cup race at Hockenheim, a breakthrough victory that sparked hopes of a championship challenge.
> RESULTS: Qualifying 1, Magny-Cours 2024
